Underpants and furniture shopping

     Today we decided to go to the furniture store.  Since she has been taking her diaper off a lot lately, I decided to offer Clara the opportunity to wear underpants.  Her Grammie got her a three-pack awhile back.  I brought out a pink pair with a little monkey on them.
     "Would you like to wear a pair of underpants or a diaper today?" I asked, laying the choices side by side on the floor.
     She wanted the underpants, and she wanted to put them on herself.  She put a leg through a leg hole and pulled it up her leg a bit.  Then she realized she'd need to put the other leg somewhere, too.  The underpants were twisted up and she couldn't find the other leg hole.
     "Would you like me to show you?" I asked.
     She made her own particular sound of frustration and impatience, a sound like a baby pterodactyl. I ventured my hand out to show her and she turned away sharply.
     "No!  No!" she said.  I could tell by her voice that her frustration was reaching a critical point.
     She shook the underpants off and tried again.  This time she tried to put her arm through the other leg hole.  But she knew this wasn't right, either.  She took the underpants off and held them in a ball next to her chest.
     She didn't want me to have them.
     She took off running down the hall, into the bathroom. She lifted the toilet lid and tossed the underpants inside.
     She seemed a little relieved when I strapped her into her diaper.

                                        *****************
   
     Clara loves the consignment furniture store we go to from time to time.  The store has a ramp.  She is perennially surprised and delighted by the way her legs go faster and faster, without her seeming to make them, as she runs down the ramp.
     Today she wanted to sit on all the chairs and couches (there were many).  She sat on a blue corduroy love seat and a plush, overstuffed recliner.  She sat on a Queen Anne chair and a chair with earthy, velour upholstery straight from the seventies.
    "Tair! Tair!" she said, running from room to room.
    "Down!" she said, standing in front of each chair.
    "You mean, 'Up,' I think," I said.
    "Hesh," she conceded, nodding and giggling.
     As soon as she was settled in a chair, she asked for her sippy cup.

                                       ******************

     All that running and climbing on chairs made Clara pretty hungry and tired.  After a disastrous foray to Carl's Jr. (apparently, Carl's Jr. cannot make a grilled cheese sandwich that is in the least palatable), we got a bagel and cream cheese at Starbucks.
     Clara loves bagels with cream cheese.  I reached back to hand her little bites while I drove.  As usual, she chit-chatted with me.
     "Mommy."
     "Yes, Love."
     "Tizz."
     "Yes, it's cream cheese."
     "Mommy."
     "Yes, Love."
     "Daddy."
     "Daddy's at work.  But we'll see him tonight."
     "Mommy."
     "Yes."
     "Potty."
     "Yes, we put poop and pee in the potty."
     She was quiet for a moment, and then she said, apologetically, "Mess."
     I glanced back.  She was painting cream cheese swirls on her bare legs beneath her lime-green capri leggings.  She had run out of real estate, from the looks of it, having painted the car door and the straps on her car seat.
     By the time we got home, the cream cheese had dried and cracked, making her look as though she had an exotic skin disease.